Tuesday, January 31, 2006

By Steve Holland 39 minutes agoWASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush will say "America is addicted to oil" and must develop technologies to address soaring gasoline prices in a State of the Union speech on Tuesday night that argues against a U.S. retreat from Iraq and the war on terrorism.

Americans won't stand for being lectured to, especially by a hypocrite like this crude-stained jackass.

The SpeechOn the evening of July 15, 1979, millions of Americans tuned in to hear Jimmy Carter give the most important speech of his presidency. After sharing some of the criticism he had heard at Camp David -- including an unattributed quote from the young governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton -- Carter put his own spin on Caddell's argument. "The solution of our energy crisis can also help us to conquer the crisis of the spirit in our country," the president said, asking Americans to join him in adapting to a new age of limits.

But he also admonished them, "In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does but by what one owns." Hendrik Hertzberg, who worked on the speech, admits that it "was more like a sermon than a political speech. It had the themes of confession, redemption, and sacrifice. He was bringing the American people into this spiritual process that he had been through, and presenting them with an opportunity for redemption as well as redeeming himself." Though he never used the word -- Caddell had in his memo -- it became known as Carter's "malaise" speech.

Boomerang ReactionPerhaps appreciating the president's astonishing frankness, the public rewarded him with higher approval ratings in the days that followed. But then, as historian Douglas Brinkley notes, "it boomeranged on him. The op-ed pieces started spinning out, 'Why don't you fix something? There's nothing wrong with the American people. We're a great people. Maybe the problem's in the White House, maybe we need new leadership to guide us.'" Historian Roger Wilkins concurs: "When your leadership is demonstrably weaker than it should be, you don't then point at the people and say, 'It's your problem.' If you want the people to move, you move them the way Roosevelt moved them, or you exhort them the way Kennedy or Johnson exhorted them. You don't say, 'It's your fault.'"

Odd that both presidents are perceived as failures, and that both of them earned that perception in large part due to exorbitant energy prices.

In Bush's case, a failed oilman, the ironies not only abound, they're pretty obvious. But maybe Bush and his oil cronies realized something this week:

Exxon Profit Sets Record, Stirs Anger

By Elizabeth Douglass, Times Staff Writer

On the strength of energy prices that hit all-time highs last year, Exxon Mobil Corp. reported earnings Monday that broke records — that of Exxon and every other corporation — sparking a fresh wave of anger from consumer groups.

The world's largest publicly traded oil company posted fourth-quarter profit of $10.7 billion, equal to more than $116 million per day over the last three months of 2005. For the entire year, Exxon Mobil earned $36.1 billion, eclipsing the high-water mark for U.S. corporate earnings that it set in 2004.

That ought to feed RNC coffers for a lonnnnnng time.

By the way, the first site I visited to look up that quote for Carter was a right wing website. Why is it every right winger has ads for WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAMS on their sites?

"Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things...every one! So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, 'Liberal,' as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work, Senator, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor." -- Matt Santos, The West Wing